^I actually consider this good news. I'd rather they take their time and deliver a quality product than do what the Dragon Age team did and let EA bully them into shoving out an early release that was only 60% done.

Thank the gods! I really wanted this to be my GOTY, but with Minecraft being officially "completed" in November, I would have been honour-bound to give that my number 1. Now that ME3 is being pushed back to 2012, it's free to take the top-spot for that year, baring Satan rising up from hell and releasing the most awesome game ever.

Yes, that is a stupid reason to want the game to be pushed back. Stop judging me.

Minor spoilers. One is of a nature that it basically confirms a storyline you probably figured you would see in ME3 if you played ME2.

Only the first detail gives me any hope for this game. Three sort of sounded good until I got to the end. There's only one thing they could say for two that would get me excited (and they haven't said it yet). The implementations of four and five sound like the exact sort of things Bioware will royally screw up.

Most of these dispatches so far have sounded like they are playing to the 'EPIC PWN FAIL' crowd, which I have nothing in common with. (/crotchety)

Minor spoilers. One is of a nature that it basically confirms a storyline you probably figured you would see in ME3 if you played ME2.

Only the first detail gives me any hope for this game. Three sort of sounded good until I got to the end. There's only one thing they could say for two that would get me excited (and they haven't said it yet). The implementations of four and five sound like the exact sort of things Bioware will royally screw up.

Most of these dispatches so far have sounded like they are playing to the 'EPIC PWN FAIL' crowd, which I have nothing in common with. (/crotchety)

I think the idea of a smaller number of squad mates was always a foregone conclusion. As the article points out, ME2 was all about building the "ultimate team" so it had to be a big, diverse group. Of course part of the trouble is the fact that--aside from Liara--every single squad mate to date may already be dead one way or another, which means that none of them can be essential in ME3. That's somewhat mitigated by Ash and Kaiden being interchangeable (in terms of narrative) but the fact remains, only ONE squad mate is guaranteed to be on Shepard's squad.

So I think what we can expect is a similar arrangement to ME1 with a 6-8 strong squad (depending on survivors) that allows you to balance out abilities to suit your needs. So given that we know Liara will be the pure biotic class and that Ash and Kaiden will fill the soldier & hybrid biotic niche (though it looks like they switched Kaiden from sentinel to vanguard) that leaves the engineer and related hybrid classes left to fill. I'll go out on a limb and presume that's where the new character fits in. Either way, there needs to eb a bare minimum of character to allow even my "looser" Shepard who got almost everyone killed should have the bare minimum for an effective squad (seriously, only Jack, Tali, Ash and Liara survived!)

As for the bit about customising the weapons; I could almost swear someone at Bioware read my post because that is exactly what I've been hoping for...well not *exactly* exactly as I also wanted to be able to fiddle with the weapons' colour scheme too. Oh well.

^Yes and no. On the one hand it is a personification of the Geth and thus not a true individual being that can be killed (short of a galaxy-wide cataclysm), on the other, if that platform is destroyed during the suicide mission, it says something to the effect that an attempted upload has failed. I think it's fair to assume means that all of it's stored memories since it's last synch with the Geth are lost. Either way, depending on what Shepard did or didn't do with the heretics, I think all bets are off as to how the Geth may change as a whole in ME3 and even if Legion survives it should also change to reflect that.

Whatever happens, I think it's unlikely that if Legion was lost that the Geth will simply send a new custom mobile platform to join the crew.

Whatever happens, I think it's unlikely that if Legion was lost that the Geth will simply send a new custom mobile platform to join the crew.

Click to expand...

You're thinking in terms of character motivation and verisimilitude, which is fine. I'm thinking in practical terms: whether Legion was killed or not, he can be brought back to Shepard's team with just one or two lines of dialogue.